Brave expands Basic Attention Token platform to YouTube

(disclosure, I work at google, and previously at YouTube)

This allows a user to donate to a content creator even if that creator doesn't have any way to get access the donations. That is, until youtubers start registering themselves in the payment tool, this is essentially watching someone's video, and then throwing money into a hole.

With other patronage systems, like patreon, you cannot donate money until the creator has an account. To me, that feels super sketch.

Edit: It reminded me to go and check my old bitcointip and altcointip accounts on reddit, on which I apparently had combined closed to $30 in BTC at today's prices, but which have both been shuttered and are now inaccessible. That's not promising.

The money doesn't go "into a hole". The funds are saved and a creator can retrieve them at any time once they sign up for an account: https://brave.com/publishers/#getverified Basically, it's their money, and whether they decide to withdraw it or not is entirely up to them.

IMO this is the right way to do it because it solves the chicken and egg problem that would normally exist with a universal funding method like this. Users don't have to worry about what payment platforms their favorite creators support; they can just browse the web like normal and the platform takes care of the rest.

It's thrown into a hole in exactly the same way that my $30 I tipped btc is not mine, because I never got it out of the system.

Edit: I said it better in response to a sibling of yours: I think it's unethical for a platform to accept payment on my behalf without my permission.

Is it unethical to buy someone a gift card? That’s another way of looking at this.

Funny you say that. This makes me think of gift cards in the sense that I suspect they will have thousands of tiny balances that are never redeemed. Usually you lose any balance after X years.